valued at 22,000 livres, had just been lost in the Gulf of St. Lawrence;
several canoes, also loaded with his goods, were lost in the rapids of the
same river. On learning these new misfortunes [in addition to others, of
his enemies' procuring], he said it seemed to him that all Canada had risen
up against his enterprises, with the single individual exception of the
Governor-general. He asserted that the subordinates, whom he had brought
from France, had been tempted to quit his service by rival traders, and
that they had gone to the New Netherlands with the goods he had intrusted
to their care; and as for the Canadians in his hire, his enemies had found
means to detach them, also, from his interests."--Yet, "under the pressure
of all his misfortunes," says a missionary, "I have never remarked the
least change in him; no ill news seemed to disturb his usual equanimity:
they seemed rather to spur him on to fresh efforts to retrieve his
fortunes, and to make greater discoveries than he had yet effected."]
Halting often in his descent to note the outlets of the many streams
tributary to the all-absorbing Mississippi, among others the Missouri and
the Ohio--at the embouchure of the latter erecting a fort--he did not reach
the ocean mouths of the "Father of Waters" till April 5th, that brightest
day of his eventful life. With elated heart, he took formal possession of
the country--eminently in the name of the reigning sovereign of France; as
he gave to it, at the same time, the distinctive appellation of Louisiana.
Thus was completed the discovery and exploration of the Mississippi, from
the Sault St. Antony to the sea; a line more than six hundred leagues in
length.
%KING PHILIP'S WAR%
A.D. 1675
RICHARD HILDRETH
This was the most extensive and most important of the Indian wars of
the early European settlers in North America. It led to the practical
extermination of the red men in New England.
Various policies toward the natives were pursued by different colonists in
different parts of the country. In New England the first white settlers
found themselves in contact with several powerful tribes, chief among which
were the Mohegans, the Narragansetts, and the Pequots.
Some attempt was made to convert and civilize these savages, but it was not
long before the English colonists were at war with the Pequots, the most
dreaded of the tribes in southern New England. This contest(1636-1638) was
mainly carried on for the colonists by the settlers of Connecticut. It
resulted in the almost complete extermination of the Pequot tribe.
After the union of the New England colonies (1643), formed principally for
common defence against the natives, there was no considerable conflict
between whites and Indians until the outbreak of King Philip's War, here
described by Hildreth.
Except in the destruction of the Pequots, the native tribes of New England
had as yet undergone no very material diminution. The Pokanokets or
Wampanoags, though somewhat curtailed in their limits, still occupied the
eastern shore of Narragansett Bay. The Narragansetts still possessed the
western shore. There were several scattered tribes in various parts of
Connecticut; though, with the exception of some small reservations, they
had already ceded all their lands. Uncas, the Mohegan chief, was now an old
man. The Pawtucket or Pennacook confederacy continued to occupy the
falls of the Merrimac and the heads of the Piscataqua. Their old sachem,
Passaconaway, regarded the colonists with awe and veneration. In the
interior of Massachusetts and along the Connecticut were several other less
noted tribes. The Indians of Maine and the region eastward possessed their
ancient haunts undisturbed; but their intercourse was principally with the
French, to whom, since the late peace with France, Acadia had been again
yielded up. The New England Indians were occasionally annoyed by war
parties of Mohawks; but, by the intervention of Massachusetts, a peace had
recently been concluded.
Efforts for the conversion and civilization of the Indians were still
continued by Eliot and his coadjutors, supported by the funds of the
English society. In Massachusetts there were fourteen feeble villages of
these praying Indians, and a few more in Plymouth colony. The whole number
in New England was about thirty-six hundred, but of these near one-half
inhabited the islands of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard.
A strict hand was held by Massachusetts over the Narragansetts and other
subject tribes, contracting their limits by repeated cessions, not always
entirely voluntary. The Wampanoags, within the jurisdiction of Plymouth,
experienced similar treatment. By successive sales of parts of their
territory, they were now shut up, as it were, in the necks or peninsulas
formed by the northern and eastern branches of Narragansett Bay, the same
territory now constituting the continental eastern portion of Rhode Island.
Though always at peace with the colonists, the Wampanoags had not always
escaped suspicion. The increase of the settlements around them, and the
progressive curtailment of their limits, aroused their jealousy. They were
galled, also, by the feudal superiority, similar to that of Massachusetts
over her dependent tribes, claimed by Plymouth on the strength of certain
alleged former submissions. None felt this assumption more keenly than
Pometacom, head chief of the Wampanoags, better known among the colonists
as King Philip of Mount Hope, nephew and successor of that Massasoit, who
had welcomed the Pilgrims to Plymouth. Suspected of hostile designs, he
had been compelled to deliver up his fire-arms and to enter into certain
stipulations. These stipulations he was accused of not fulfilling; and
nothing but the interposition of the Massachusetts magistrates, to whom
Philip appealed, prevented Plymouth from making war upon him. He was
sentenced instead to pay a heavy fine and to acknowledge the unconditional
supremacy of that colony.
A praying Indian, who had been educated at Cambridge and employed as a
teacher, upon some misdemeanor had fled to Philip, who took him into
service as a sort of secretary. Being persuaded to return again to his
former employment, this Indian accused Philip anew of being engaged in
a secret hostile plot. In accordance with Indian ideas, the treacherous
informer was waylaid and killed. Three of Philip's men, suspected of having
killed him, were arrested by the Plymouth authorities, and, in accordance
with English ideas, were tried for murder by a jury half English, half
Indians, convicted upon very slender evidence, and hanged. Philip
retaliated by plundering the houses nearest Mount Hope. Presently he
attacked Swanzey, and killed several of the inhabitants. Plymouth took
measures for raising a military force. The neighboring colonies were sent
to for assistance. Thus, by the impulse of suspicion on the one side and
passion on the other, New England became suddenly engaged in a war very
disastrous to the colonists and utterly ruinous to the native tribes. The
lust of gain, in spite of all laws to prevent it, had partially furnished
the Indians with fire-arms, and they were now far more formidable enemies
than they had been in the days of the Pequots. Of this the colonists hardly
seem to have thought. Now, as then, confident of their superiority, and
comparing themselves to the Lord's chosen people driving the heathen out of
the land, they rushed eagerly into the contest, without a single effort at
the preservation of peace. Indeed, their pretensions hardly admitted of it.
Philip was denounced as a rebel in arms against his lawful superiors, with
whom it would be folly and weakness to treat on any terms short of absolute
submission.
A body of volunteers, horse and foot, raised in Massachusetts, marched
under Major Savage, four days after the attack on Swanzey, to join the
Plymouth forces. After one or two slight skirmishes, they penetrated to the
Wampanoag villages at Mount Hope, but found them empty and deserted. Philip
and his warriors, conscious of their inferiority, had abandoned their
homes. If the Narragansetts, on the opposite side of the bay, did not
openly join the Wampanoags, they would, at least, be likely to afford
shelter to their women and children. The troops were therefore ordered into
the Narragansett country, accompanied by commissioners to demand assurances
of peaceful intentions, and a promise to deliver up all fugitive enemies of
the colonists--pledges which the Narragansetts felt themselves constrained
to give.
Arrived at Taunton on their return from the Narragansett country, news came
that Philip and his warriors had been discovered by Church, of Plymouth
colony, collected in a great swamp at Pocasset, now Tiverton, the southern
district of the Wampanoag country, whence small parties sallied forth to
burn and plunder the neighboring settlements. After a march of eighteen
miles, having reached the designated spot, the soldiers found there a
hundred wigwams lately built, but empty and deserted, the Indians having
retired deep into the swamp. The colonists followed; but the ground was
soft; the thicket was difficult to penetrate; the companies were soon
thrown into disorder. Each man fired at every bush he saw shake, thinking
an Indian might lay concealed behind it, and several were thus wounded by
their own friends. When night came on, the assailants retired with the loss
of sixteen men.
The swamp continued to be watched and guarded, but Philip broke through,
not without some loss, and escaped into the country of the Nipmucks, in the
interior of Massachusetts. That tribe had already commenced hostilities by
attacking Mendon. They waylaid and killed Captain Hutchinson, a son of the
famous Mrs. Hutchinson, and sixteen out of a party of twenty sent from
Boston to Brookfield to parley with them. Attacking Brookfield itself, they
burned it, except one fortified house. The inhabitants were saved by Major
Willard, who, on information of their danger, came with a troop of horse
from Lancaster, thirty miles through the woods, to their rescue. A body of
troops presently arrived from the eastward, and were stationed for some
time at Brookfield.
The colonists now found that by driving Philip to extremity they had roused
a host of unexpected enemies. The River Indians, anticipating an intended
attack upon them, joined the assailants. Deerfield and Northfield, the
northernmost towns on the Connecticut River, settled within a few years
past, were attacked, and several of the inhabitants killed and wounded.
Captain Beers, sent from Hadley to their relief with a convoy of
provisions, was surprised near Northfield and slain, with twenty of his
men. Northfield was abandoned, and burned by the Indians.
"The English at first," says Gookin, "thought easily to chastise the
insolent doings and murderous practice of the heathen; but it was found
another manner of thing than was expected; for our men could see no enemy
to shoot at, but yet felt their bullets out of the thick bushes where they
lay in ambush. The English wanted not courage or resolution, but could not
discover nor find an enemy to fight with, yet were galled by the enemy." In
the arts of ambush and surprise, with which the Indians were so familiar,
the colonists were without practice. It is to the want of this experience,
purchased at a very dear rate in the course of the war, that we must
ascribe the numerous surprises and defeats from which the colonists
suffered at its commencement.
Driven to the necessity of defensive warfare, those in command on the river
determined to establish a magazine and garrison at Hadley. Captain Lathrop,
who had been despatched from the eastward to the assistance of the river
towns, was sent with eighty men, the flower of the youth of Essex county,
to guard the wagons intended to convey to Hadley three thousand bushels of
unthreshed wheat, the produce of the fertile Deerfield meadows. Just before
arriving at Deerfield, near a small stream still known as Bloody Brook,
under the shadow of the abrupt conical Sugar Loaf, the southern termination
of the Deerfield Mountain, Lathrop fell into an ambush, and, after a brave
resistance, perished there with all his company. Captain Moseley, stationed
at Deerfield, marched to his assistance, but arrived too late to help him.
Deerfield was abandoned, and burned by the Indians. Springfield, about the
same time, was set on fire, but was partially saved by the arrival, with
troops from Connecticut, of Major Treat, successor to the lately deceased
Mason in the chief command of the Connecticut forces. An attack on Hatfield
was vigorously repelled by the garrison.
Meanwhile, hostilities were spreading; the Indians on the Merrimac began to
attack the towns in their vicinity; and the whole of Massachusetts was soon
in the utmost alarm. Except in the immediate neighborhood of Boston, the
country still remained an immense forest, dotted by a few openings. The
frontier settlements could not be defended against a foe familiar with
localities, scattered in small parties, skilful in concealment, and
watching with patience for some unguarded or favorable moment. Those
settlements were mostly broken up, and the inhabitants, retiring toward
Boston, spread everywhere dread and intense hatred of "the bloody heathen."
Even the praying Indians and the small dependent and tributary tribes
became objects of suspicion and terror. They had been employed at first as
scouts and auxiliaries, and to good advantage; but some few, less confirmed
in the faith, having deserted to the enemy, the whole body of them were
denounced as traitors. Eliot the apostle, and Gookin, superintendent of
the subject Indians, exposed themselves to insults, and even to danger,
by their efforts to stem this headlong fury, to which several of the
magistrates opposed but a feeble resistance. Troops were sent to break up
the praying villages at Mendon, Grafton, and others in that quarter.
The Natick Indians, "those poor despised sheep of Christ," as Gookin
affectionately calls them, were hurried off to Deer Island, in Boston
harbor, where they suffered excessively from a severe winter. A part of the
praying Indians of Plymouth colony were confined, in like manner, on the
islands in Plymouth harbor.
Not content with realities sufficiently frightful, superstition, as usual,
added bugbears of her own. Indian bows were seen in the sky, and scalps in
the moon. The northern lights became an object of terror. Phantom horsemen
careered among the clouds or were heard to gallop invisible through the
air. The howling of wolves was turned into a terrible omen. The war was
regarded as a special judgment in punishment of prevailing sins. Among
these sins the General Court of Massachusetts, after consultation with
the elders, enumerated: Neglect in the training of the children of church
members; pride, in men's wearing long and curled hair; excess in apparel;
naked breasts and arms, and superfluous ribbons; the toleration of Quakers;
hurry to leave meeting before blessing asked; profane cursing and swearing;
tippling-houses; want of respect for parents; idleness; extortion in
shopkeepers and mechanics; and the riding from town to town of unmarried
men and women, under pretence of attending lectures--"a sinful custom,
tending to lewdness."
Penalties were denounced against all these offences; and the persecution of
the Quakers was again renewed. A Quaker woman had recently frightened the
Old South congregation in Boston by entering that meeting-house clothed in
sackcloth, with ashes on her head, her feet bare, and her face blackened,
intending to personify the small-pox, with which she threatened the colony,
in punishment for its sins.
About the time of the first collision with Philip, the Tarenteens, or
Eastern Indians, had attacked the settlements in Maine and New Hampshire,
plundering and burning the houses, and massacring such of the inhabitants
as fell into their hands. This sudden diffusion of hostilities and vigor of
attack from opposite quarters made the colonists believe that Philip had
long been plotting and had gradually matured an extensive conspiracy, into
which most of the tribes had deliberately entered for the extermination of
the whites. This belief infuriated the colonists and suggested some very
questionable proceedings.
It seems, however, to have originated, like the war itself, from mere
suspicions. The same griefs pressed upon all the tribes; and the struggle
once commenced, the awe which the colonists inspired thrown off, the
greater part were ready to join in the contest. But there is no evidence
of any deliberate concert; nor, in fact, were the Indians united. Had they
been so, the war would have been far more serious. The Connecticut tribes
proved faithful, and that colony remained untouched. Uncas and Ninigret
continued friendly; even the Narragansetts, in spite of so many former
provocations, had not yet taken up arms. But they were strongly suspected
of intention to do so, and were accused by Uncas of giving, notwithstanding
their recent assurances, aid and shelter to the hostile tribes.
An attempt had lately been made to revive the union of the New England
colonies. At a meeting of commissioners, those from Plymouth presented a
narrative of the origin and progress of the present hostilities. Upon the
strength of this narrative the war was pronounced "just and necessary," and
a resolution was passed to carry it on at the joint expense, and to raise
for that purpose a thousand men, one-half to be mounted dragoons. If the
Narragansetts were not crushed during the winter, it was feared they might
break out openly hostile in the spring; and at a subsequent meeting a
thousand men were ordered to be levied to coöperate in an expedition
specially against them.
The winter was unfavorable to the Indians; the leafless woods no longer
concealed their lurking attacks. The frozen surface of the swamps made the
Indian fastnesses accessible to the colonists. The forces destined against
the Narragansetts--six companies from Massachusetts, under Major Appleton;
two from Plymouth, under Major Bradford; and five from Connecticut, under
Major Treat--were placed under the command of Josiah Winslow, Governor of
Plymouth since Prince's death--son of that Edward Winslow so conspicuous in
the earlier history of the colony. The Massachusetts and Plymouth forces
marched to Petasquamscot, on the west shore of Narragansett Bay, where they
made some forty prisoners.
Being joined by the troops from Connecticut, and guided by an Indian
deserter, after a march of fifteen miles through a deep snow they
approached a swamp in what is now the town of South Kingston, one of the
ancient strongholds of the Narragansetts. Driving the Indian scouts before
them, and penetrating the swamp, the colonial soldiers soon came in sight
of the Indian fort, built on a rising ground in the morass, a sort of
island of two or three acres, fortified by a palisade and surrounded by a
close hedge a rod thick. There was but one entrance, quite narrow, defended
by a tree thrown across it, with a block-house of logs in front and other
on the flank.
It was the "Lord's day," but that did not hinder the attack. As the
captains advanced at the heads of their companies the Indians opened a
galling fire, under which many fell. But the assailants pressed on and
forced the entrance. A desperate struggle ensued. The colonists were once
driven back, but they rallied and returned to the charge, and, after a
two-hours' fight, became masters of the fort. Fire was put to the wigwams,
near six hundred in number, and all the horrors of the Pequot massacre were
renewed. The corn and other winter stores of the Indians were consumed, and
not a few of the old men, women, and children perished in the flames. In
this bloody contest, long remembered as the "Swamp Fight," the colonial
loss was terribly severe. Six captains, with two hundred thirty men, were
killed or wounded; and at night, in the midst of a snow-storm, with a
fifteen-miles' march before them, the colonial soldiers abandoned the fort,
of which the Indians resumed possession. But their wigwams were burned;
their provisions destroyed; they had no supplies for the winter; their loss
was irreparable. Of those who survived the fight many perished of hunger.
Even as a question of policy this attack on the Narragansetts was more
than doubtful. The starving and infuriated warriors, scattered through
the woods, revenged themselves by attacks on the frontier settlements.
Lancaster was burned, and forty of the inhabitants killed or taken; among
the rest, Mrs. Rolandson, wife of the minister, the narrative of whose
captivity is still preserved. Groton, Chelmsford, and other towns in that
vicinity were repeatedly attacked. Medfield, twenty miles from Boston, was
furiously assaulted, and, though defended by three hundred men, half the
houses were burned. Weymouth, within eighteen miles of Boston, was attacked
a few days after. These were the nearest approaches which the Indians made
to that capital.
For a time the neighborhood of the Narragansett country was abandoned. The
Rhode Island towns, though they had no part in undertaking the war, yet
suffered the consequences of it. Warwick was burned and Providence was
partially destroyed. Most of the inhabitants sought refuge in the islands;
but the aged Roger Williams accepted a commission as captain for the
defence of the town he had founded. Walter Clarke was presently chosen
governor in Coddington's place, the times not suiting a Quaker chief
magistrate.
The whole colony of Plymouth was overrun. Houses were burned in almost
every town, but the inhabitants, for the most part, saved themselves in
their garrisons, a shelter with which all the towns now found it necessary
to be provided. Captain Pierce, with fifty men and some friendly Indians,
while endeavoring to cover the Plymouth towns, fell into an ambush and
was cut off. That same day, Marlborough was set on fire; two days after,
Rehoboth was burned. The Indians seemed to be everywhere. Captain
Wadsworth, marching to the relief of Sudbury, fell into an ambush and
perished with fifty men. The alarm and terror of the colonists reached
again a great height. But affairs were about to take a turn. The resources
of the Indians were exhausted; they were now making their last efforts.
A body of Connecticut volunteers, under Captain Denison, and of Mohegan and
other friendly Indians, Pequots and Niantics, swept the entire country of
the Narragansetts, who suffered, as spring advanced, the last extremities
of famine. Canochet, the chief sachem, said to have been a son of
Miantonomoh, but probably his nephew, had ventured to his old haunts
to procure seed corn with which to plant the rich intervals on the
Connecticut, abandoned by the colonists. Taken prisoner, he conducted
himself with all that haughty firmness esteemed by the Indians as the
height of magnanimity. Being offered his life on condition of bringing
about a peace he scorned the proposal. His tribe would perish to the last
man rather than become servants to the English. When ordered to prepare for
death he replied: "I like it well; I shall die before my heart is soft or I
shall have spoken anything unworthy of myself." Two Indians were appointed
to shoot him, and his head was cut off and sent to Hartford.
The colonists had suffered severely. Men, women, and children had perished
by the bullets of the Indians or fled naked through the wintry woods by the
light of their blazing houses, leaving their goods and cattle a spoil to
the assailants. Several settlements had been destroyed and many more had
been abandoned; but the oldest and wealthiest remained untouched. The
Indians, on the other hand, had neither provisions nor ammunition.
While attempting to plant corn and catch fish at Montague Falls, on the
Connecticut River, they were attacked with great slaughter by the garrison
of the lower towns, led by Captain Turner, a Boston Baptist, and at first
refused a commission on that account, but, as danger increased, pressed to
accept it.